On 4 February 2019, the EU Member States and European Parliament reached a provisional agreement on a draft directive regarding the digitalisation of company law rules. The directive will aim to revise and facilitate the rules in governing the use of digital and online communication with public authority contacts.
Consistent with the EU's broader objectives of transparency, efficiency and legal certainty in the digital era, the directive would provide:
- permission for companies to register, set up new branches or file documents to the business register online;
- harmonisation of the relvant fee requirements;
- coherent procedural requirements in relation to online registration of campanies; and
- precautions against online misuse of information (e.g., identity fraud).
The directive must now be formally adopted by the Council of the EU and the European Parliament.
The press release can be found here.
The joint statement by the First Vice-President and Commissioner can be found here.
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